Aboria Capital has appointed Issie Armstrong as Head of Client Capital. The newly created position underscores the company’s commitment to strategic growth following the launch of its latest investment opportunity combining income, value-add and scale.
Issie will lead investor engagement efforts, drive targeted fundraising initiatives, and identify investment solutions to meet the evolving needs of investors. In this role, she will collaborate closely with the UBS Capital Markets team to create strategic partnerships that position Aboria Capital for sustained success.
She joins from DWS Group where she was Head of Real Estate Specialists, EMEA (excluding Germany/Austria) for nearly four years, leading on product strategy and investment initiatives, including capital formation, for European real estate equity products. She worked closely with Aboria Capital’s Co-founder and CEO Jessica Hardman throughout her time at DWS – with this move seeing the pair reunited.
“I am hugely excited to be reuniting with Issie once again. Her exceptional skillset, drive and infectious energy will be invaluable as Aboria accelerates its market launch. From the outset, Aboria’s strategy clearly resonated with Issie, and I’m confident that her contribution will be instrumental in sharpening our positioning with global institutions and allocators seeking exposure to our core conviction Living sub-sectors.”
Jessica Hardman, CEO, Aboria Capital
Issie brings over 16 years of diverse investment management experience spanning asset management, product strategy and development, capital formation and investor relations.
She has held roles at Aviva Investors, serving as both Investment Director and Product Development Director, and at LaSalle Investment Management, where she was an Associate Director focused on capital raising, relationship management, and acted as a Product Specialist for UK PRS strategies.
“I am thrilled to be joining Aboria, where I have the rare opportunity to help shape a high-potential, growth-driven investment platform alongside high calibre industry veterans and a best-in-class Living sector developer and operator like Downing. I had a strong partnership with Jessica at DWS, who shares my client-first mindset, which is especially important in the current investment climate. I am confident that Aboria’s ability and strategic vision will enable us to capitalise on emerging opportunities and build market-leading portfolios that will deliver strong performance to investors.”
Issie Armstrong, Head of Client Capital, Aboria Capital
Aboria Capital will bring in joint venture and club deal partners to recapitalise the recently completed flagship PBSA/flex-living scheme, Square Gardens in Manchester – a £375m project which comprises over 2,000 beds; and to realise Downing’s pipeline, which includes eight new projects planned to start on site at Russell Group university locations across the UK from 2026. The investment thesis for the sector is underpinned by supportive demographic trends across core UK and European cities.
Aboria Capital was established in 2024 as a joint venture between the Downing Group, led by Bay Downing, and Jessica Hardman, former CEO of DWS UK and Head of European Portfolio Management, to target investment into the Living sector, with an initial focus on the UK market and longer-term plans to expand into Europe.
The vertically integrated business unites investment management expertise with an established development and operational track record. It is seeded by around £1.4bn UK purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) and flex-living development pipeline from Downing, one of the UK’s largest privately owned property investment and development companies and an early pioneer of the PBSA sector.
